Central European history

Ruch Solidarności, jak i nowe formy współbycia, kryzys demokracji i kapitalizmu oraz próby jego przekroczenia, wreszcie przyszłość Polski i Europy to motywy przeplatające się w niniejszej pracy. W swych esejach mierzą się z nimi wyjątkowe postaci współczesnej humanistyki: Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017), Edwin Bendyk, Krzysztof Czyżewski, Dominika Kozłowska, Sławomir Magala, Reinhard Marx, Cezary Obracht-Prondzyński, Shalini Randeria, Michael Sandel, Gesine Schwan, Timothy Snyder, Guy Sorman i Michel Wieviorka. Na niniejszy tom składają się wykłady cyklu "Etyka solidarności" i eseje, które zostały napisane dla Europejskiego Centrum Solidarności w latach 2011–2019. Stały się one dla ECS inspiracją, wyznaczając tematy poruszane w codziennej pracy oraz pomocne w odkrywaniu kierunków, w jakich instytucja powinna się rozwijać, by sprostać wyzwaniom współczesności.

The publication Czech Historical Atlas. Chapters on the History of the 20th Century freely follows the long-lasting cooperation between experts from the Institute of History CAS, the Department of Geomatics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development of the Faculty of Sciences, Charles University. The main joint outputs of their cooperation include the Academic Atlas of the Czech History (2014, 2016) and the atlas monograph Frontiers, massacres and replacement of populations in cartographic representation: case studies (15th–20th centuries) (2015).
The Academic Atlas of the Czech History is the second scientific atlas of the Czech and Czechoslovak history, created half a century after the Atlas of the Czechoslovak History from 1965. The conditions for its creation and publication were provided by a research programme under the Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences together with the Academia Publishers. The content of the atlas was based on the latest findings of historical research and covered the period from prehistory until the early 21st century. The individual sections captured the basic themes of historical development in the Czech Lands with links to the European development, but mainly the central European space on maps, cartographic models, illustrations, charts and choropleth maps.
The publication Frontiers, massacres and replacement of populations in cartographic representation captured selected examples of violent relocations of the populations including forced exile and border changes on maps and in texts. The team of authors presented this theme at the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences, which was held in Chinese Jinan in 2015, thus evaluating the results of the existing historical research and experience by means of cartographic elaboration. The work was published with support from the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The publication Czech Historical Atlas. Chapters on the History of the 20th Century is the result of the project National and Cultural identity II No. DG16P02H010 where some authors of the mentioned atlases, but also other experts met again over joint objectives and assignments. The title illustrates the selective nature of the themes, which were given by several important motives: The 20th century was a period filled with actions, which in many cases still mingle with the present. It is perceived as a part of the historical and collective memory, touching on the living persons or recalling experience passed by the eyewitnesses across the generations. The broad spectrum of processes and events of modern history cannot be fully captured in a single atlas to an extent given by potentialities of the project. Therefore, the concept of the atlas was adapted to the authors’ specializations, thus emphasising certain stages of modern history for the historical awareness of the society. Yet it was not possible to process certain important findings using a cartographic method. In many cases, a map of the
selected territory would not be evenly covered by the thematic contents, i. e. the historical phenomena and processes, not only because of the lack of relatively accurate topographical information based on research into the historical resources, but also because of their fragmentation, disparity or concentration on just certain areas. There were also the issues of hierarchisation (the degree of importance, superiority and inferiority), categorization and generalisation of the information for the needs of small-scale maps. Borders of the territories and their transformations within the particular chronological milestones depicted together on a  single synthesising map also presented a serious problem.
In terms of cartographic processing, the authors were also limited by the dimensions of a printed atlas and the related scales of the individual maps. Where necessary, the
main maps were supplemented with detail maps or overview maps. The thematic content of the maps was always processed with regard to user friendliness and legibility.
Therefore, the choice of themes for the printed Czech Historical Atlas mostly followed the mentioned criteria. At the same time, however, the authors knew that some themes could not be missed out in the selection of maps on the history of the 20th century. In addition to the completely new maps and texts, important themes from the mentioned works were included, but the texts and the cartography were updated and modified.
The atlas has three basic sections: Space, Time and Society. Deliberately, no chronological aspect was chosen that would suppress the uniqueness, specificity and lasting topicality of themes distinctive to the 20th century. The individual sections are preceded by Jitka Močičková’s analytic views, which focus on historical atlases of the Czech Lands from the mid-19th century until the present day with historical reflections on the birth of the European historical cartographic creation.
The Space is clearly connected with delimitation of the territories and incorporation of the Czech Lands, Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic within the central European and international structures. The Space also means division of the territories into smaller units motivated by the political and economic developments. And the Space is
also the landscape where transformations provoked by various causes took place in the development of the society. Despite the fact that other atlases have already explored the landscape in its relation to the society, the authors have processed at least several map examples.
The Time mostly covers themes of the military and political history such as the POW camps in the First World War, the Second World War events and selected historical
milestones of the second half of the 20th century. In this area, the problems of cartographic depiction were the deepest – extensive descriptions of political, economical and cultural developments in the historical resources at the
expense of topographical data, concentration of events into several repetitive locations, rapid transformations of the historical developments in short periods, etc. These facts greatly limited the themes of the second half of the 20th century into just a few examples of their cartographic depiction.
The Society strongly reflects on the still hot issue of migrations, both as a historical process and a demonstration of violence of the ruling powers and regimes. It pays attention to the ethnic, religious and educational diversities and monitors perception of the Czech State in the world through various forms of representation of the individuals as well as the whole entirety. It comments on the demographic development of the Czech Lands and the migrational and religious issues throughout the 20th century.
Although the atlas is a printed publication, the most advanced methods of digital cartography were applied. The creation of all maps in the geographical information system is based on a spatial database, which contains topographic (underlying) layers and a thematic content based on the authors’ manuscripts. The cartographic elaboration respects the unifying elements of the atlas (joint basis of map symbols key, the scale levels, cartographic projections), but each map is processed individually with accent on clear elaboration of the theme. Importantly, the creation of the maps was always accompanied by a cartographer and an expert on the theme (historian, geographer) and their discussion resulted in the final form of the map. The team was
very functional in this respect. The database will be partly used in the upcoming electronic portal “Czech Historical Atlas” where some chronological and spatial aspects can be visualized by means of modern methods of interactive cartography.
The Czech Historical Atlas. Chapters on the History of the 20th Century is yet another feat of the Czech historical cartography from the first decades of the 21st century. It
presents cartographically depicted historical events, which still appeal to the professionals and amateurs, but also issues that have not been processed so far. It offers a view of the historical developments in the time and space as it is provided by printed (analogue) and synthetic maps with a certain degree of stationariness, but at the same time with the benefit of stability of printed media over the internet.

The perception of Romani people in “western” European states has been predominantly linked with forms of migration that emerged from post-communist countries, especially since the two latest EU enlargements. Still, these migrations are not unidirectional and homogeneous at all, but contain multi-layered and diverse forms of movement. In this book we present some outcomes of a recent research project which we carried out in analysing movements from members of Romani communities in southern Slovakia to the Austrian province of Styria. These discussed communities are neither linguistically separated nor in terms of housing strictly segregated from their mostly Hungarian surrounding. Nevertheless, the migrations – initially for the purpose of begging – and especially their effects foster differentiation and even an increase of segregation tendencies. In particular, the projects of NGOs in the region and the depiction of Romani people in Austrian media has shaped the othering of these Hungarian Slovakian citizens of Romani belonging.
In an introductive overview on the character of these migrations, we argue that these movements are transnational, not only because they are circular (instead of once-and-forever), but also because they question the notion of seemingly traditional migratory patterns. One of the effects of the migrations has been the emergence of a relatively strong connection between the regions involved, highly visible in the symbolical relationship between the village of Medovce-Metete  and Graz. Not only have development projects by Austrian NGOs and official support from local governments in Austria changed the situation in this village, but the presence of begging Romani people has shaped political debates and self-perceptions in Graz. These effects and relationships can most adequately be described as a transnational network that allows the movement of people, goods, money, knowledge etc.
This book is based on material from our field researches in South-central Slovakia (called the Gemer/Gömör region), and Graz, deriving first and foremost from interviews with migrants, NGO-activists, officials and non-migrating people, which we carried out from September 2010 until February 2011. The second basis for this book are images and texts from coverage in different forms of media, such as newspapers and magazines, but also graffiti in public space, bulk mail, etc., from 1989 to 2011. We set these sources in dialogue with one other and thus map a space across the borders between language and action as well as the borders of nations/regions. In doing so, it becomes visible that there are huge intersections and interdependences between perceptions of these migrations, the circumstances in which they happen and the consequences they have (like development aid).

What is the term "Black Europe" and how have scholars employed it? What type of intellectual currency does this particular category hold and what does it yield conceptually and methodologically for both the study of histories of Europe and simultaneously the Black Diaspora? This essay considers some of the ways that thinking with Black Europe as a unit of analysis and as an epistemological approach can transform how we understand the shifting historical contours of Europe and ideas about Blackness.